As Cam noted on Tuesday, a journalist named Josh Gerstein, a senior legal affairs reporter for Politico, got mocked viciously for his comments regarding conservative independent journalists being shot for knocking on the door to daycares under Stand Your Ground laws.
At some point, the amateur effort to knock on doors of home daycares intersects with robust stand-your-ground laws
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) December 30, 2025
Now, Cam touched on one important point in his piece, and it's one that I don't think we can understate:
It's highly ironic that Gerstein's ineptness at fact-checking spoiled his attempt to gatekeep journalism and leave it in hands of professionals like himself instead of "amateurs" like Shirley. I guess we should thank him for reminding us once again why its never a good idea to accept the mainstream media's Second Amendment claims at face value... and Gerstein himself should be thanking a good portion of the X-osphere for giving him some valuable information on how laws like Stand Your Ground actually work.
See, the issue here is that Gerstein's lack of understanding of Stand Your Ground laws, Castle Doctrine laws, and other such self-defense statutes really drives home: He's not alone in this so-called thinking.
Over the years, I've seen countless reporters and activists make claims about Stand Your Ground laws that don't reflect the reality of the situation. Here, Gerstein not just mixes up Stand Your Ground and Castle Doctrine, but also seems to think that it's justified to shoot someone for just knocking on your door.
While that has happened, those people have been charged because, frankly, they should have.
People like Gerstein have long decried these laws as justifying murder. They've claimed that all anyone needs to do is say they were in fear of their life and they'll walk for killing someone in cold blood. They seem to think that the people shooting through doors over unexpected knocks were able to do so because of the law.
Which is fine if they're just regular, uninformed people. They're not. They're journalists, and because they've absolutely never bothered to get both sides of the story, they project that ignorance to the general public and improperly inform them of what the laws mean.
This means that at least some people are legitimately going to think that they can get away with killing someone when they can't.
In this case, how many people who might be engaging in fraudulent daycare operations might figure they can just open fire at a knock on the door because Gerstein said it was a possibility because of Stand Your Ground laws?
And he's a senior legal affairs reporter. He's someone who should at least have some inkling of what a law actually says before spouting off about it to his followers and all those who got to see just how mentally disabled he really is.
That post has 5.3 million views as of this writing, and at least some of them think he's onto something. They don't realize he's as ignorant as a fungus on the topic, either. They see his job title and figure he knows what he's talking about when he clearly doesn't.
Gell-Mann Amnesia is when someone reads something they are familiar with in the news, recognizes all the flaws, and then forgets how much was wrong in that story when they read one about something they're unfamiliar with. They accept it at face value.
Well, ladies and gents, Gerstein is why Gell-Mann Amnesia is a problem. If they tried to get their facts straight, it would be less of an issue. Instead, they spout nonsense like this, both on social media and in news stories, and ill inform the public, all while pretending they oppose things like misinformation.
It would be hilarious if it weren't so sad.
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